Paradiso · Canto XXVIII ·
Paradiso XXVIII — The Mirrored Point
Reading Divine Comedy · canto 95 of 100 · Paradiso, Canto XXVIII
Before reading
The canto in which Dante looks at the cosmos from the outside in. He has now ascended into the Primum Mobile, the great outer sphere whose rotation gives motion to every heaven below it; from this vantage he can see, mirrored in Beatrice's eyes, an extraordinary thing — a point of light so small and so bright that the smallest visible star would look like a moon beside it, with nine concentric circles of fire whirling around it. The pilgrim has spent the entire poem ascending through nine heavens at the centre of which was the Earth. Now, suddenly, he sees the heavens the other way round: the centre is a point, the rings around it are the angelic orders, and what he had thought was up is in fact near. The canto is the Commedia's great Copernican reversal — six centuries before Copernicus — though delivered, fittingly, in mystical rather than astronomical terms.
Where the canto sits
We are in the Primum Mobile. The eighth heaven and the seven planetary heavens are below us. The Empyrean — the motionless heaven of God — is above. This canto contains the last cosmological description of Paradiso. From here onward the topics will be theological and visionary, not astronomical. Read this canto as the moment in which the map of the universe is given its final shape.
What it helps to know
The point of light the pilgrim sees is God. The nine concentric rings of fire that whirl around it are the nine orders of angels — the heavenly hierarchies medieval theology inherited from a treatise called the Celestial Hierarchy by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, written in Greek in the late fifth or early sixth century by an unknown author who passed himself off as the Athenian convert of St Paul mentioned in Acts 17. The work was authoritative for over a thousand years. It assigns three orders to each of three triads:
- First triad (closest to God): Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones
- Second triad: Dominions, Virtues, Powers
- Third triad: Principalities, Archangels, Angels
A different ordering had been proposed by Pope Gregory the Great in his Homilies on the Gospels. Dante in this canto sides with Dionysius and tells us, in an extraordinary passing detail, that Gregory, when he reached Heaven, at himself did smile on realising his order had been wrong.
The pilgrim's confusion when he first sees the rings: the innermost ring — closest to the point — is brightest and moves fastest. But the outermost heaven the pilgrim has been climbing through — the Primum Mobile, the ninth — also moves fastest, and contains, in his Earth-centred map, the heavens nearest to God. The pilgrim cannot reconcile innermost with outermost. Beatrice will resolve the paradox: the appearance is governed by the position of the observer relative to the cosmos and the angelic mirror. The intellectual moment is one of medieval cosmology's most fully worked-out paradoxes.
What to read for
Notice the very first image: the pilgrim sees the point of light mirrored in Beatrice's eyes. He does not look at it directly; he sees it reflected. The whole canto's epistemology is in that opening. God is seen, in this universe, through the mediating loved face that turns toward him.
Notice the sizing: the point is so small that whatsoever star seems smallest here would seem to be a moon, if placed beside it. The smallness of God in this canto is one of the Commedia's great structural surprises. Dante has spent the whole journey teaching us that God is vastness; here, he gives him the smallest visible dimension in the cosmos.
Notice the chessboard image at the canto's centre — more millions than the doubling of the chess. Medieval audiences knew the old legend about the doubling of grains on a chessboard until the total exceeded the world's wheat. Dante uses it to say the number of angels exceeds the doubling. The poem is using a popular puzzle to figure the inexpressibly large.
From here on: illustrations and analysis. The three images below are scenes from the canto, and after them comes the close reading — famous lines quoted in full, paradoxes explained, political and theological freight unpacked. If you have not yet read the canto, stop here — read it, then come back.
After reading
What the canto did
The canto inverted the cosmos. The pilgrim had been climbing for twenty-seven cantos through nine concentric heavens whose centre was the Earth. In this canto he looks, for the first time, into the cosmos from outside it and sees the real centre: a single point of light so small that the smallest visible star would look like a moon beside it. Around that point, nine concentric rings of fire spin — the angelic hierarchies — and the innermost ring is the fastest and brightest, mirroring the outermost heaven the pilgrim has just climbed through. The two maps of the universe — the Earth-centred map he has been ascending and the God-centred map he is now seeing — are two mirrors of the same reality. The whole journey is being given to the pilgrim, retroactively, as having always been a journey inward toward the smallest dimension even when he thought it was a journey outward to the largest one. The canto then names the angelic orders by Dionysius's scheme and corrects Pope Gregory in passing. It is a canto of intellectual revelation, of understanding what one has already done.
The mirror, and the rule of mediation
The first vision of the point is given through Beatrice's eyes. As in a looking-glass a taper's flame / he sees who from behind is lighted by it, / before he has it in his sight or thought. The pilgrim sees the reflection before he sees the source. The image announces the canto's epistemology and Paradiso's: God is reached, in this poem, through loved mediation. Beatrice's eyes have been the medium of vision since canto II of Inferno; now they are the literal mirror in which the smallest and brightest object in the cosmos is shown to her lover. The same Beatrice who spoke to Virgil with love now reflects to Dante the highest light. The mediation is unbroken across a hundred cantos.
Why the centre is small
The geometric shock of the canto — the centre is a point — is doing serious theological work. In the Earth-centred cosmology, God's transcendence was figured by largeness: the Empyrean was the biggest heaven, the heaven outside all the others. In the angelic cosmology Beatrice now reveals, transcendence is figured by smallness and intensity: God is the smallest possible dimension, and the rings closest to him are the fastest because they are most ardent. The two figures (vast Empyrean / point of light) are not contradictory; they are two perspectives on the same reality, the physical heavens viewed from inside and the angelic heavens viewed from outside. The reader who pauses on this canto is asked to hold both at once. The pilgrim's if the world were arranged / in the order which I see in yonder wheels, / what's set before me would have satisfied me is the protest of any reader who finds the doubling difficult. Beatrice's answer is one of the most carefully argued tercets in Paradiso: the size of a circle corresponds not to its position but to its virtue. The greatest body corresponds to the greatest love and knowledge. The Primum Mobile is vast in its physical extension and first in its angelic correspondence because the angels who move it (the Seraphim) are most ardent. Size and ardour are commensurate.
The angels: their pure intellect, their joy
The second half of the canto is given to the angelic orders. Three triads of three: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominions, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Each triad of orders corresponds to a triad of operations. Beatrice will spend more time on the doctrine of angelic blessedness than on the names themselves: the angels' joy is founded in the faculty which sees, not in that which loves, and follows next. Vision is the ground of bliss; love follows on vision. The medieval intellectualist position — defended by Aquinas against the Franciscan voluntarists who put love first — is being given to the pilgrim from the highest authority. The whole later trajectory of the Commedia's closing cantos depends on this: the Beatific Vision will be seeing, and what follows from the seeing is loving. The order in canto XXVIII is the order at the canto XXXIII close.
Gregory's smile
The most delightful small moment of the canto is the correction of Pope Gregory the Great. Gregory had proposed a different ordering of the angelic hierarchies in his Homilies on the Gospels. Beatrice tells Dante that Dionysius's order is correct — and that Gregory, on arriving in Heaven and seeing the truth, at himself did smile. The picture is gentle and exact: a great Pope arriving at the Beatific Vision and finding, on the matter of his own scholarly speciality, that he had been wrong, and laughing at himself. The image is meant to do moral work. The canto says, by implication, that the highest blessedness involves the cheerful correction of one's earthly errors. There is no shame in error in Heaven; there is the small relieving laugh of finally seeing.
Famous and meaningful passages
The mirror.
As in a looking-glass a taper's flame He sees who from behind is lighted by it, Before he has it in his sight or thought, (Par. XXVIII.4–6)
The reflection precedes the direct sight. The whole epistemology of Paradiso in three lines.
The point.
A point beheld I, that was raying out Light so acute, the sight which it enkindles Must close perforce before such great acuteness. And whatsoever star seems smallest here Would seem to be a moon, if placed beside it. (Par. XXVIII.16–20)
God as the smallest dimension in the cosmos. The smallness is what intensifies the brightness.
The fastest ring.
Behold that circle most conjoined to it, And know thou, that its motion is so swift Through burning love whereby it is spurred on. (Par. XXVIII.43–45)
The Seraphim. Speed and love are the same thing in the angelic order.
The pilgrim's protest.
If the world were arranged In the order which I see in yonder wheels, What's set before me would have satisfied me; But in the world of sense we can perceive That evermore the circles are diviner As they are from the centre more remote (Par. XXVIII.46–51)
The reader's protest given to the pilgrim. The two maps do not match.
The resolution.
Therefore this one which sweeps along with it The universe sublime, doth correspond Unto the circle which most loves and knows. (Par. XXVIII.70–72)
Beatrice's resolution. The greatest body corresponds to the greatest love and knowledge. The two maps are two views of the same reality.
The doubling of the chess.
Their coruscation all the sparks repeated, And they so many were, their number makes More millions than the doubling of the chess. (Par. XXVIII.91–93)
The chessboard legend used to figure the inexpressibly large number of angels. Più che 'l doppiar de li scacchi s'inmilla — more than the doubling of the chess multiplies into thousands.
The first triad.
The primal circles, said, Have shown thee Seraphim and Cherubim. Thus rapidly they follow their own bonds, To be as like the point as most they can, And can as far as they are high in vision. (Par. XXVIII.98–102)
The Seraphim and Cherubim. They can as far as they are high in vision — capability is proportional to sight.
The doctrine of blessedness.
From this it may be seen how blessedness Is founded in the faculty which sees, And not in that which loves, and follows next; (Par. XXVIII.109–111)
The intellectualist position. The canto XXXIII Beatific Vision is being prepared, five cantos in advance, as a seeing before it is a loving.
Gregory's correction.
But Gregory afterwards dissented from him; Wherefore, as soon as he unclosed his eyes Within this heaven, he at himself did smile. (Par. XXVIII.133–135)
One of the most charming small moments in Paradiso. The Pope laughs at his own scholarly error on arriving.
What to watch for
Watch the doctrine of seeing. Beatrice has now said it plainly: blessedness is founded in sight. The final canto will pivot on this: the pilgrim will see God and his will will turn. The seeing is the cause.
Watch the angels. They have been named here in formation. They will appear next in canto XXXI as the swarm of bees that descends into the white rose and ascends back to God — the same hierarchies, now seen in action around the redeemed.
Watch Beatrice's role. She has just delivered her last major piece of cosmological exposition. From here on, her role will diminish: in canto XXX she will hand the pilgrim over to the river of light; in canto XXXI she will return to her seat in the rose and her place as Dante's guide will be taken by St Bernard. The teacher is preparing to step back.
This post is part of Reading Divine Comedy, a slow daily companion to Dante's Commedia in the Longfellow translation — read one canto at a time, with a short orientation before and a close reading after. From Inferno I to Paradiso XXXIII.